The drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas isn’t too bad until you approach the state border (Home of the Pat Tillman Shot Dead By Your Own Country And Poorly Covered Up In An Attempt To Spin Your Fratricide Story Into A Recruiting Campaign Better Than Army Strong Bridge) and then you’re in moon dust desert country. The hour spent pushing 100mph just to get out of that region is equal parts lonely, irritating, and seemingly endless. If you’re paying attention, however, you may see a turnoff to the Grand Canyon that is just a half-day detour from I-93.

While making this drive last March (heading to Vegas for the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament, thanks for asking #FireLarryScott), I was able to pull up the Grand Canyon on my Yelp app and read some reviews. That’s right, you can Yelp review one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the only one of which is in the United States. The one review that will forever influence my opinion of man as a species, which I cannot find now among the scores of reviews on there, was a woman who gave the Grand Canyon 3 out of 5 stars (a 60%, D grade), docking it a point each for (1) being so far from their Las Vegas hotel, and (2) being “too large” in that she could not comprehend its size when standing at the rim.

I bring this review up because the Cardinals played in the AM slot on Sunday. Being in the NFC West, Arizona typically plays in the late spot and this Week 13 game was only their 4th (and with @PHI flexed to SNF, likely last) AM appearance this season. I like when my game is on in the AM slot because I can get it done and be on to other stuff while the day is still early; like this week when I kicked off my holiday baking. So why do I mention Yelpers now – the kind of people who will give up the personal experience of every dining visit to provide practically-valueless reports and photos highlighting their visit¹? Because these people are unreal. They perceive to be getting attention for their opinions and immediately just go to saying insane shit (like the Grand Canyon is a three-star experience) that offers no intrinsic value to unfamiliar researchers reading their reviews (or looking at their generic perspective-less photos).

And Yelpers, I am sure, are the pool of people who make up the callers for the Cardinals flagship radio station post-game call-in show, Cardinal Talk, which I listened to on Sunday afternoon. At 10-2 and after putting up a dominating revenge performance against a division opponent, Arizona isn’t exactly the best candidate for a Week 13 Fans React Completely Reasonably. But when your team sucks, anyone can bitch. I say, it’s in these times that we really find out what people are made of when there’s really nothing to say yet callers will wait on hold for the better part of an hour to briefly give their ‘insight’ on a radio show that is, I assume, quite poorly rated.

Below are a few highlights from my Week 13 Cardinal Talk experience.

After a brief intro and game recap, we “go to the phones.” I’m paying pretty close attention and the first caller just comes storming on the scene. He’s clearly a regular by the way the host introduces him and it was like, “Oh, and here’s Jeff from Mesa to lead us off.” No greeting, no “first time, long time” banter. Dude is exhibiting an indecipherable excitement. I mean, he’s the first caller so he probably dialed the studio at halftime and has been working on his Ron Wolfley (local ex-Cardinal-turned-radio-host who is basically a caricature of the ‘old school’ mentality, speaking in a deep growl and referring to football as “the blood sport”) impression since preseason. I have no idea what he’s saying. Seriously, I watched the game so I knew what triggers to listen for — this was just like a really bad, really loud Hulk Hogan impression. All I picked up was, “Brother……Rams…..BA and Keim….Seahawks…Super Bowl.” Then he just hangs up in, what I assume he thinks is, a mic drop because why would anyone need to listen to the show after this performance?

Listen East Valley Clones, I know the Cards punked the Rams, ok? I do. Palmer is playing sick, out of his mind, football. I get it, you’re stoked. But it’s the Rams. Chris Everett. Jeff Fisher. Shah. You went one and one against the future Lo-Cal Rams. They’re trying to fail so they can change cities and you’re screaming with excitement about being .500 against them this year? Anyone else calls about being within one score of the Rams at halftime as a success, I’m gonna break you off. That is not classic. That is the plot to Major League. John Brown is not Willie Mays Hayes.  Get that through your dome.

So the hosts are just like, “Well, yeah, great game. Thanks for the call Jeff. Now we’ve got Erik from Litchfield” and Eric comes on tell us this is the first time he ever feels like the cards are in control, which is a fair point that I think many fans are relieved to agree with. HOWEVA, he is concerned that “we” (every single caller uses ‘we’ until they are talking about the defense allowing ONE significant gain by Todd Gurley, then it’s “James Bettcher” or “the defense”) aren’t running to the right enough where, statistically we get six yards more per carry (I may have misheard this ‘fact’). So, Erik reiterates, we need to run right more. The host kind of brushes it off as part of a bigger game plan but asks Erik if he’s relieved to see the running game still contributing with Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington out. Erik responds with, “No! We need to be running to the right!” I assume the host drops him at this point but, either way, end of the call.

Then we take a time out (which is what they call a commercial break). Every break is commercials for Ford Friends and Neighbors pricing; a generic Verizon commercial that is made ‘local’ by saying their network “works as hard as an Arizona Cardinals linebacker”; and then a local Ford dealership commercial with a local radio host and the dealership manager comparing the 2016 Ford line up to the Cardinals Roster (“I’m talking about a winning team here.” “ME too! Like the Ford Focus! And Go Cards!”)

After the break is where we get the good callers though:

– Greg in Glendale: Finally, someone greets the hosts and asks how they are doing. Anyway, Greg is 61 and “from the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Been watching football since I was….since I don’t know when I started….I’ve been watching football played on those snowy fields for, well, up until I moved here.” He brings a completely pointless introduction but asks a fair question about a no-call for PI (which simply teased Kheergh) where the referee explained that “no material restriction” had been made. The hosts don’t know the rules any better than anyone else so they say it’s a good no-call and talk about how great it was to have a game that didn’t have any officiating controversies.

– Garrett from Apache Junction: [nearly hyperventilating grown man] “Hey guys. Just wanted to say, you know, we put in the work and corrected what we did wrong last week. We held the Rams to like five first downs and 150 yards of offense. Not taking Victory Monday and putting in the work helped us get that win today.” Garrett hangs up. No question. There were at least four callers similar to Garrett, my favorite being a woman who goes off on how Bruce Arias and Steve Keim get all this credit but the position coaches are putting in the work and making these players better. She points out that John Brown and JJ Nelson have speed but working with wide receiver coaches is what makes them capable non-Ted Ginn Jrs. I’m actually pretty impressed with her pointed argument until, “…and I know this because my fiance is a position coach and those guys work long hours to improve these players,” and I thought something about how she’s a stupid bitch and rearranged my cooling racks.

– My favorite female caller though, was Angela in Phoenix: Her complete call was, “Thanks for taking my call. That 98 yard drive got the Cards offense even more fired up from what they were before.” Hangs up.

– Jim in Mesa wanted to talk defense but then brought in the best question of the day: “…also, I would like to hear your thoughts on Palmer compared to Neil Lomax and how those two great QBs compare.” The hosts give some generic statements about “knowing where to go with the football” as well as being leaders and good locker room guys.

– Then another call from Litchfield, this time it’s Josh:  “Hey what’s up fellas? Want to give a shout out to floyd. I play fantasy and he does great. Also a shout out to Fitz. I think you are up there with Rice and will be an all time great.” Hangs up. Hosts talk abotu Fitz’ career year and 1,000th reception. AND HOW IMPRESSIVE THAT HE GOT his 1,000th career catch the same game as his 1,000th yard in the season!  Then the other announcer goes back to Lomax and Palmer so that he can point out that another thing they have in common is that they are both slow. Then all the hosts laugh. Bad radio jokes are just the worst. They screech at me like the forced laughs of a billion art house movie patrons.

– Scott in Phoenix “wants to play devil’s advocate here” and goes on to talk about how poor the offensive line still looks and that Bobby Massie “has slow feet”. The host points out that the line did struggle a bit in the first half with almost non-stop blitzing from the Rams, who have a decent front, and that the running backs did a good job trying to chip the blitzers to protect Palmer. Scott folds and agrees with the host, ending his backpedal with, “as an o-line coach, I appreciate that kind of work.”

– Tim in Scottsdale: “Hi gentlemen, how are you?” Pause, as the host clearly expects Tim to go into his tirade. “Fine, how are you?” Then it all goes to hell. He’s an Aussie, I think. I got no clue what he said at first. Something about the draft (I think he’s talking about the Rams drafting trends) then, “‘This is the year’ is what we hear every year but I’m glad we kicked their ass. And go Saints.” Hangs up.

Oh man, I can’t believe how many callers were on this show. I have notes for more but this is already too long. Just know that a guy from Kearny (a tiny AF mining town that is really suffering right now because the mine is mothballed until copper prices come back up) went off on the misuse of Dwight Freeney, a 3rd down pass rusher who is only used for that one particular call. But since there weren’t many 3rd downs in the game, this dude thought we should just be playing our aging veteran specialist on every snap for the hell of it.

^{1. I can say this because I am the King of Phoenix on Yelp}

https://www.instagram.com/p/-UkAt5HQfN/ on Nov 20, 2015 at 1:12pm PST